The Ulterior Unearthing
by DontKillMyVibe
Summary: Chapter 6 has been posted! / A daring rescue mission, a developing bond, and an eye that seems to follow them everywhere, the Baudelaires are determined to uproot every last secret of VFD. Unfortunately for them, they're not the only ones that are searching. Violet/Quigley. R&R.
1. Chapter 1

_Beatrice-  
><em>_Your last breath blew out the candle  
><em>_I am still in the dark._

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><p>With the charred structure of Hotel Denouement curling and writhing behind them, the three orphans climbed onto the boat with Count Olaf.<p>

His grin looked wider than usual and quite resembled the Cheshire cat's, and his eyes looked shinier than ever, although, this could have been due to the flickering images of orange and yellow reflected in his orbs that came from the building in front of him as he faced the orphans.

"Let that be a lesson to you," he said, and turned around to face the front of the boat again. Taking in the setting sun, he spread his arms wide, and shouted loudly to no one in particular, "Everything burns!"

He walked to the side of the vessel and picked up three oars. Directing Klaus to one side and Violet and Sunny to the other, he forced them to begin the movement to sea. The three children complied, even though every fiber of their will was telling them not to.

Soon, the sun dipped below the waterline and the only sound the occupants of the boat could hear was the splashing of the oars against the ocean. Count Olaf yawned purposefully and soon lay down to sleep. His clamorous snoring began to uncharacteristically fill the quiet water, and the Baudelaires found that any chances for them to get sleep were dashed by the foghorn-like noise.

Sunny's little eyelids were drooping when she heard a sharp sound. Looking around, she registered a human voice, but could not find the source.

"Psst!" The voice said again, and Sunny's head reached over the side of the boat. She gasped, and her delicate mouth formed the shape of an 'o'. She turned excitedly and toddled over to Violet in front of her and, remembering not to wake the sleeping madman, gesticulated wildly over the edge.

Violet had not heard the noise, but went back to Sunny's section of the boat and peered over the edge. When she saw the occupant over the side, a euphoric shriek escaped her throat before she could help herself.

She whipped around to check the effect her yelp had on the slumbering man. He rolled over, but his eyes stayed shut. Violet let out a sigh of relief. She spun back to focus over the edge.

"Quigley!" She whisper-screeched. "What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing you, of course," Quigley said, with a strained smile. Noticing his position, Violet reached down to grasp his hand. Quigley was precariously straddling one leg on the boat, and the other on a small life raft with a lantern on it.

"Violet, not that I don't love holding your hand, but the position I'm in isn't the most comfortable, and I'd appreciate it if you and your siblings hopped on as soon as possible."

By this time, Klaus had come over to their side of the boat. When he looked over the edge, he clutched his hair and breathed a staccato laugh of disbelief.

Violet picked up Sunny and lowered her into Quigley's arms, and he placed her safely on the raft. Next, Klaus helped Violet onto a wooden box propped onto the side of the boat and helped her over the edge. Finally, Klaus was getting ready to hop over the side when he turned back to Olaf's form.

"Wait," he said, and took a step towards the form.

"Klaus!" Violet hissed. She couldn't see what her brother was doing, but it didn't matter anyway, because Klaus wasn't listening. Klaus took up some rope tied around a bar at the back of the boat, and pulled it around the sleeping figure. Klaus did not aim to suffocate; no, his goal was to ensure that the orphans simply got that head start. Never over the age of twelve, Klaus realized, was he given a head start. Olaf was always one step ahead of them, and the frustrating part was he got there by nefarious ways. He took shortcuts. The Baudelaires had been the ones to crack each code, to pour over books and documents to decipher the past that Olaf had destroyed. It took ten times the amount of work to salvage the remains of the items that took mere minutes to burn away.

Klaus deftly twisted the rope around Olaf's torso, careful not to pull too tightly. Klaus did not want to greet the man's shiny eyes again.

Once he was satisfied, he stepped towards the right side of the boat and joined his siblings and companion.

"Let's get out of here," Violet shivered, as the sun was long gone and an eery grayness had cloaked the sea.

The raft started in the opposite direction to where the boat was heading. Quigley shook off his sweater and wrapped Sunny snuggly in it. The exhausted toddler lay down in the center of the craft and was soon asleep.

Violet turned to Quigley. "How did you find us?"

Quigley sat down on a bucket near the corner of the raft. Violet sat down next to him, and Klaus sat on the floor next to Sunny, stroking his sister's back.

Quigley launched into his adventure. "After I lost you on the river, I fell unconscious and drifted to the nearest town. Luckily, a fisherman spotted me bobbing in the water and pulled me out. I had to stay at that town for nearly two weeks, but I got a hold of a map at a convenience store and found Hotel Denouement on it. As I was planning my trek there, a man standing near me told me that that's where he was going."

Klaus shook his head. "What a coincidence!"

Quigley gave him a wry smile. "That's what I thought as well. I thought I was the luckiest man in the world - I didn't think to...question the suspiciousness of it."

Violet's eyes widened. "It was one of Olaf's henchmen, wasn't it?"

"Bald, with a long, yellowish nose?"

Violet grimaced. "That would be one."

Quigley shook his head. "On the way to the hotel, he kept berating me, asking me what I was going to do there. One time, after a nap, I awoke to see him sifting through my bag. He didn't know that I was watching. So later on, when he stopped for fuel and we were close enough to the hotel, I slipped out of the car."

"I arrived at the hotel and donned a mask. I was looking for you. I wasn't recognized, except for once when I was mistaken for Duncan by a...teacher at his school? Mr. Remora? But from him I learned that he had been in contact with a person who desperately wanted to know more about the children that went to Prufrock Preparatory School."

Quigley looked at the ground for a moment, as though he was trying to muster up the courage to tell Violet and Klaus something.

Violet couldn't take it anymore. "What Quigley? Who was it? Who was Mr. Remora in contact with?"

Quigley's eyes finally met hers. "Your mother."

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><p><strong>AN: Hello, lovely readers! This is my first ever Series of Unfortunate Events fic, and I really hope you liked the first chapter! I've been a fan of the series since I was five, and this specific section (the part when they get on the boat with Olaf) has always frustrated me because JUST JUMP OFF THE BOAT COME ON. Whenever I reread it, I always hope that it goes another way, but since that's impossible, I wrote what I've always wanted to happen :) What did you think?**

**X,**

**DKMV**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Ulterior Unearthing - Chapter 2**

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><p><em>"I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real." -Oscar Wilde<em>

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><p>There comes a point, when one is used to disappointment, to sigh and say, "Yes, yes, that's nice" when something fortuitous happens, because he or she is so used to despondency that there is no use to be fleetingly happy. If your uncle promised you an ice cream cake for your birthday, and then failed to deliver one when the occasion came around, him swearing on his dead cousin-in-law to bring you one next year might cause you to mutter, "Yes, yes, that's nice," knowing that he certainly will not.<p>

"Yes, yes, that's nice," Klaus said, turning away from Quigley slightly. He stared at his feet from behind his glasses.

Quigley, sensing the orphans' disbelief, quickly continued. "Mr. Remora said Beatrice Baudelaire was alive. I - I really thought he was lying...after all, half of the people in that hotel were liars, but...he looked so _sincere_. Nothing he said betrayed that he wasn't telling the truth."

Violet was staring at Quigley, thinking hard. At Prufrock Preparatory School, Mr. Remora had been one of the people to try and dissuade Vice Principal Nero from expelling her siblings and her. If he was really on the side of the Villains, wouldn't he have done nothing but encouraged them to fail?

She opened her mouth to voice her thoughts, but immediately shut it. She didn't want to contribute to false hope.

The bottom of their raft scraped some rocks, and the orphans looked up to see that they were very near shore. To their right, they could see black smoke lifting straight up in the air where Hotel Denouement once stood. They averted their eyes.

Quigley spoke up. "I've arranged for a meeting with Mr. Remora. I think it would be better for you to hear everything coming from him."

"Blaze!" Sunny protested, which probably meant something along the lines of, "The hotel has gone up in flames, so I don't think that we can meet my sister's past teacher there anymore."

The Quagmire triplet shook his head, as if he had understood Sunny's outburst. "We're meeting him at the local library."

The Baudelaires followed him skeptically along, but they walked along the darkened cobblestone streets until they reached a small public library, lit dimly by a flickering streetlamp. At the front of the library, instead of a name, there was only a sign that read, "Knowledge hurts."

Quigley took a deep breath. "Here we are." He took the doorknob and twisted it, opening the door with a shivering creak for the three siblings.

Inside, Mr. Remora stood shivering in a large armchair. It was a warm night, so the Baudelaires guessed that it was not the weather that made him shake.

Pale, he jumped up, and when he noticed that it was only the children, said, "I almost thought you wouldn't come!"

Quigley sat down on another chair and motioned for the three siblings to do the same. "I just retrieved them. Olaf was attempting to steal them away to sea."

Mr. Remora's eyes widened. He resembled a wild fish as he gesticulated wildly in the air. "Children - I knew the entire time of Coach Gengis' disguise...I should have done something about it! I should have, and I regret it to this day! We lost the last safe place of VFD tonight, and this certainly raises a lot of difficulties, most prominently pertaining to reuniting you with your mother; now - "

It is one thing to hear a statement repeated by a messenger, and it is an entirely different thing to hear something from the source. When Violet heard Mr. Remora say earnestly that she was going to meet her mother again, it was almost too much for her to take. Her emotions overwhelmed her, trying to spill out into her heart, but she fought not to lose control of them.

She lost the battle with herself. "Mr. Remora!" she said, interrupting a burst of passion that she could not contain, "Do you mean it? Were you really in contact with our mother?"

Mr. Remora paused in his stream-of-consciousness rant, and stared down at the fifteen-year-old, shocked.

"Why, yes, Violet," he said. "Quigley did not tell you?"

He looked at Quigley, who responded, "I told them the basics, but thought it would be more understandable if they heard it entirely from your perspective."

Mr. Remora thought for a moment, and then nodded. He immediately disappeared into the throng of books, and emerged with a heavy, thick novel. Upon opening it, the Baudelaires were shocked to find that a rectangle had been cut into the pages, to make a hidden compartment in the center of the book.

The book, entitled, _The History of Knitting_, was one that anyone could understand would be a good place to hide things in. Nearly no one, except for those who know what they were looking for, would under any circumstances pick up a 600-page novel on knitting, even if it is a perfectly useful pastime.

Mr. Remora withdrew a smaller folder and settled back down into the dusty bookstore chair.

"Before it was Prufrock Preparatory School, children, the institution was an education ground for future volunteers. All volunteers' children and abandoned children who wanted to prove themselves attended this school. Not only did they need to study algebra to calculus, like those in traditional school, but they had to study _human relations_. They were able to rationalize with the uneducated, reason with the immoral, and empathize with the psychopath! These children were not just trained mentally - no, they were trained _emotionally_."

The man paused for a moment to show the children a picture from the folder. It depicted a group of kids and teenagers in clothing a generation before theirs, standing in a circle and together solving a complicated puzzle. The Baudelaires and Quigley sat in rapt attention. Mr. Remora took this time to stare at each individual face, as if he was mentally deliberating whether he should reveal the next scrap of information.

"Your mother and I attended this academy. It also included brains like your father, Kit Snicket, and her brother, whose name I cannot recall right now.

"After the Schism, the volunteers were terrified of the villains amongst them at that very moment. People pretended to be who they were not. No one could risk such a concentrated number of volunteers in one place, and eventually, the training ground had to split up.

"It was eventually taken over by villains, and parents had to flee without their children. You see, if children were in any way connected with their parents, their lives would be put in terrible danger. So the parents had to leave without telling their kids where."

Violet understood, "Of course, to the kids it would have looked like their parents had abandoned them to save their own skin."

Mr. Remora nodded. "Exactly! When in actuality, every child would be safe at the school, albeit amongst villains, if only he or she could not be identified with certain volunteers. No one could even murmur a hint about what side he belonged to.

"After it was branded Prufrock, the institution became a memory of what used to be great. Volunteers were forced to recollect it as the symbol of everything great that died after the schism. Momento mori. And the Villains appointed the Vice Principal Nero, whom we are well aware of. He was not the...sharpest pencil in the box, I should say. He hardly paused from deafening the ears of the public on that violin to realize that he was an instrument in the villains' plan."

Klaus' brow furrowed. "So Vice Principal Nero was never a Villain himself?"

Mr. Remora returned Klaus' inquiry with a humorless bark of laughter. "Nero?! Oh, Lord, no! Unfortunately, even the Villains of VFD require a measurable amount of intelligence to be a member.

"Which is why, children, considering the precariousness of the rising Villains' initiative, I have reason to believe that the same fate of the parents of the young volunteers came upon your mother."

Mr. Remora stared at them. Violet stared back blankly, one of the rare moments in her life where she had been stunned into submission. She did not know where to begin comprehending the message Mr. Remora had just relayed her; she didn't even have the energy to tie her hair up in her ribbon to solve this mental equation.

She slowly fit the pieces together, like the puzzle parts of a mechanical machine.

"You mean to tell us that our mother faked her death to protect us?"

Mr. Remora nodded.

_And since she hasn't come out of hiding_, Violet thought, this time silently to herself, _that means she's still in danger_.

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><p><strong>AN: Happy Holidays, everyone! I have so many ideas for what's going to happen, so thanks for putting up with this story. :)**

**Parsat - Thanks for giving this a shot! Hopefully I won't disappoint. And I do plan on completing this, so don't worry about me leaving you all hanging on a chapter.**

**taylormartin1253 - Reviews like yours always make my day, and they really inspire me to crank chapters out faster. So thank youuuuu!**

**Until next time,**

**DKMV**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Ulterior Unearthing - Chapter 3**

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><p><em>"Perhaps there are those who are able to go about their lives unfettered by such concerns. But for those like us, our fate is to face the world as orphans, chasing through long years the shadows of vanished parents. There is nothing for it but to try and see through our missions to the end, as best we can, for until we do so, we will be permitted no calm." -Kazuo Ishiguro <em>

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><p>There is a literary device known as irony, and an aspect of it is situational, which is defined as an event in which the opposite of what is intended occurs.<p>

When Klaus was younger, and was not excited about something, he spent a good deal of time thinking of alternate realities that were better than what he was doing at the moment. For example, when his teacher was saying something historically incorrect in class, he would imagine a reality where Mr. Gold actually had a brain and was imparting to the class his first-hand experience of living during the French Revolution.

So at that moment, with the new information about his parent, Klaus' mind, against his will, began to conjure up circumstances in which he and his siblings were joyously reunited with his mother, who was unharmed by the Villains and knew where their father was and had hired an architect to reconstruct their home and...

As Klaus' thoughts soared, I feel like this is the ripe time to remind you that there is a difference between imagination and reality. Klaus' mind, although brilliant, insightful, and stuffed with knowledge, was limited to his experience. There was no way he could go back in time and save Dewey Denouement, read the burned Schism notes, or have any idea about the person hiding behind a bookshelf in that very library, taking careful notes.

Mr. Remora spoke, jolting Klaus out of his mental comfort. "I believe that we should start by searching the ruins of your old home."

Sunny shrieked "Formida!", which meant something along the lines of, "We will accomplish nothing at that house, and it will only trigger painful memories!"

But young Sunny was speaking in a dialect Mr. Remora was unfamiliar with, and he took this as a plea to be picked up. Settling little Sunny in his arms, he led the Baudelaires and Quigley into the chilly midnight.

The teacher led them to a train station and paid for five tickets. The group waited in the terminal until unmistakable screeching began to approach rapidly, and a train squealed into the station. The five passengers were the only ones boarding, and the car was empty. Klaus took Sunny from Mr. Remora and sat down with his baby sister in his lap. Mr. Remora chose to remain standing, clutching hard onto the strap hanging down from the ceiling, as if he were hanging onto it for dear life. Violet sat down next to her brother, and Quigley plopped down beside her.

Violet was very pale, and she stared blankly at the opposite wall of the train as it pulled out of the tunnel. Quigley took her hand in his and squeezed it.

"We'll find something," he whispered reassuringly.

A bit of color returned in Violet's cheeks. She glanced over at the boy next to her, and the corners of her mouth turned upward very slightly. Soon, her eyelids soon began to droop with the heaviness of exhaustion, and the last thing she could remember was resting her head delicately on Quigley's shoulder.

She vaguely registered the sound of the train's brakes as it entered a dark tunnel, which meant that they had arrived at their station. Quigley moved her long bangs out of her closed eyes and gently shook her awake, standing up slowly in the process. Not wanting to relinquish her warm human pillow, Violet muttered a delirious protest, but the freezing air of the opening doors brought her back into full consciousness.

The train station was not far from the house. Once they arrived, Violet could barely bring herself to look at it. Why hasn't the debris been cleared away yet? Why did the town insist on leaving it here as a charred reminder?

The group stepped over the tape that kept passersby away. Quigley fished around in his satchel until he extracted four miniature flashlights. Then the five split up among the house, not quite sure of what they were looking for.

The Baudelaires searched relentlessly for a trace of their mother and father. Violet, stepping into what was left of their ornate library, recalled a quote from one of her favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, "Everyone must leave something behind when he dies. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there." With that quote circling ceaselessly in her head, Violet tried valiantly to fight off her doubt that anything lay in the mansion.

She picked up a blackened scrap of a book, and wiped soot off the cover. Through the grime, she could see that it was A Beginner's Guide to Mechanical Engineering. It had been her favorite book as a young child. She had barricaded herself in her room for hours with just that book and her Tinkertoys. And here it was, despite its significance, carelessly on the floor, just like any other old piece of trash.

It was here that Violet convinced herself that she would find nothing in her old home. She missed her shelter, but what she missed most of all was the feeling of having a mother. She missed being kissed, being held, and being told she's brilliant by the woman that she aspired to be; Violet yearned for what her friends took for granted every single day. The bubble of safety that every child requires had been popped long ago, popped on that horrible day at Briny Beach when Mr. Poe had coughed his way over to her and her siblings. At that moment, surrounded by all the destruction and terror that fire has caused her and her siblings, the incessant theme that had robbed her of her two most prized possessions, Violet collapsed on the ground, tears running down her cheeks, wishing nothing more than to have been engulfed in the flames herself.

"Violet? Violet!" Klaus heard a sound and raced over to her. Inspecting her scraped knee, Klaus ripped a piece of cloth off his shirt and wrapped it around as a makeshift bandage. Violet stared into Klaus' determined, innocent face as he concentrated on healing her and she immediately regretted her thought, repulsed with herself that death had even crossed her mind. She was glad that she was alive. She _was_. She was so unbelievably _fortunate_ to be there for her siblings, to be carrying out one of her parents' wishes - to protect them.

"Guess what I found?" Klaus told his sister, not taking his eyes off of her cut leg. He pushed a letter towards her. Violet couldn't mistake her father's handwriting.

"Klaus, this is incredible! How did it survive the fire?"

"It was in one of his metal-lined desk drawers."

The letter was dated three months before the tragedy, which Violet remembered to be when her parents took a vacation and entrusted her for the first time to babysit. Looking back, she realized that her parents probably hadn't been relaxing in paradise on their trip, but rather attending to more serious matters.

Klaus was old enough to recall it, too. "I think the reason they had to leave so quickly was because they had volunteering. They thought they might not return home, so they wrote this letter to us just in case."

Violet read it through aloud:

_Dearest Violet, Klaus, and Sunny:_

_Your mother and I miss you dreadfully. I can assure you, this vacation is nothing like we were expecting, so you aren't missing out on anything too exciting. We're sorry you couldn't tag along. _

_When your mother and I get back, we've decided to host our first annual garden party! Your mother and I (in a fit of boredom), planned it all out:_

_First, we will have a tea ceremony with all our guests to catch up. We hope that all our relatives stay civil to each other (I'm referencing you, dearest Sunny - we do not need any more threats of a restraining order again, even though I'm certain Uncle Hendrick will not get within twenty meters of your impressive teeth.) Next, we will have a great game of lawn bowling next to those flamingo statues your mother just put up. _

_I cannot wait to discuss it with you when we get home. Remember, children, we love you so very much. We will see you soon. _

_Your Father and - _

"Wait, Violet," Klaus interrupted suddenly, "could you read that last sentence over again?"

"_Remember, children, we - _"

"No! The one before that!"

"The one about the lawn bowling?"

"Yes! That one!"

Klaus grabbed the letter from Violet's hands, unable to contain his excitement.

"Don't you see? The sugar bowl was in the tea set that they mention! They reference it many times! Even lawn _bowling_; look!"

"But the sugar bowl was stolen from our house when it burned down. From what we know, it's still at the bottom of Hotel Denouement."

"That's where you're wrong, children," a voice said from the corner of the library. Someone had retrieved the sugar bowl from the depths of the doomed hotel.

I, Lemony Snicket, finally stepped out of the shadows. "The sugar bowl is in my possession."

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><p><strong>AN: Incredible readers, I really hope you enjoyed the last installment before we all head back to school from the holidays! **

**Does anyone like Ray Bradbury as much as I do? I feel like his work Fahrenheit 451 really applies here. It's a chilling story about what happens when authorities begin to burn books because they spread too many ideas (which could fuel rebellion). If you like ASOUE, I'd definitely recommend it!**

**Parsat - You're correct! I'm skipping The End to head where The Penultimate Peril led us. And don't worry, your reviews are awesome! You seem smart, and so I can take the honesty if it means this story will get better :). **

**What do you think: would you rather me more focus on plot in Chapter 4, or have some Violet/Quigley scenes?**

**X,**

**DKMV**


	4. Chapter 4

**The Ulterior Unearthing - Chapter 4**

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><p><em>"Truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more." -Herman Melville<em>

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><p>When I had voluntarily revealed myself to Violet and Klaus for the first time, their initial reaction was, as expected, fear. Here I was, a stranger, stepping out of a corner of their library in a tan trenchcoat and a hat that obscured part of my face.<p>

The synapses in Klaus' brain began firing intensely as he tried to draw connections. Something about the stranger's voice and face seemed to alert his senses.

Realization dawned on him. "I know you," he breathed. "I've seen you everywhere. Following us. Watching our every move. Writing down..._information_ on pieces of paper."

He turned to Violet. "I think he's working for Count Olaf."

He rounded back to me and spat, "Who are you?"

I held up my hands, which is a universal sign of surrender. It was interesting how all discussion of the sugar bowl had flown from the boy's mind. Even at such a young age, his only thoughts were towards protecting his family.

"I would never work for Count Olaf," I said. "The salary is far too meager. Anyway, if I were really working for him, would I have revealed myself like this? Unarmed, and with information about the sugar bowl?"

Klaus searched for the right words, but could only sputter, "Then - then, who ARE you?"

"An acquaintance of your mother's" was all I could muster. I couldn't help but look around the room, every charred corner bringing back memories of the utmost pain.

"I think my brother means your _name_," Violet finally found her voice.

I stared into Violet's pretty brown eyes. "Lemony Snicket," I said, holding out my hand. Klaus stepped forward, looking at it skeptically but eventually shaking it.

"Now what's this about the sugar bowl?" the boy asked.

"Ah, yes. When Hotel Denouement...closed, I retrieved it from the pond."

"Where is it now?"

"It is quite a ways away, at my own residence, hidden with some Very Foreign Desirables. I'd like you children and Quigley to accompany me there."

Violet spoke up, "And why should we believe you? After all, you were just spying on us."

I sighed, but it was not out of exasperation, but sympathy for the orphans. I know what it's like to not be able to trust anyone.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out by dog-eared, crinkled wallet. Out of it I pulled a yellowing photograph.

A beautiful woman posed next to a reticent man. In it, she was laughing and had her arm around the shoulder. The man was of the less photogenic type, but he was clearly happy, and also clearly me.

Violet breathed out a sigh of shock as she ran her index finger lightly over her mother's face. Almost all of her mother's pictures had been destroyed in the fire, and to see her smiling face again overwhelmed her. The fact that she had been deprived of seeing that face for so long, made the picture that much more enjoyable.

Violet turned to her brother, her eyes brimming with emotion. "Let's go with him," she said.

"Can Mr. Remora come with us?" Klaus asked.

I shook my head. "Although I'm sure that Mr. Remora's intentions are pure, he lacks the skills to keep secrets, and if he's ever forcibly questioned, I'm afraid that he will reveal everything that I'm about to show you."

"He told me right before he came in here that he needed to leave the house in twenty minutes to join the excavation crew for the hotel," Klaus told them, "I'll go find Quigley and Sunny, and we'll wait until he leaves to set off."

"Sounds like a plan," Violet said. "I need to do one thing before I go, though."

With that, leaving Klaus and me in the library, Violet Baudelaire made her way up the battered stairs and toward her old room.

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><p>Once upon a time, there was an extremely spoiled girl that lived in a luxurious house with parents that got her everything she wanted. One day, the girl decided that for her sixth birthday, she would like a beautiful bird that was part of an endangered species. Her parents spent weeks trying to obtain that specific type of bird, but after realizing the impossibility of it, they instead got her another beautiful bird from a <em>different<em> species that cost them thousands of dollars. On her birthday morning, the girl scampered down the stairs, took one look at the extravagant bird in its cage, and began to cry her eyes out, wailing about how her parents didn't love her.

The moral of the story is that people rarely live up to expectations. It's frustrating to know that no matter how hard you work, if it's just a degree below what someone is expecting, the entire mission is worthless. It's comparable to losing an Olympic marathon race by a fraction of a second: you have accomplished a tremendous distance, and yet somehow your entire country is still disappointed in you, even though they could never do it themselves.

Ever since the fire, Violet's expectations had plummeted. She reasoned that if her calculations were naturally low, then anything positive to happen would be a large relief by her scale. So she wasn't anticipating that her room looked exactly like it used to a year ago.

Nevertheless, she wanted to salvage what she could. She pushed open the black door of her bedroom. The hinges didn't work and the door ended up being pushed down entirely, making a loud crashing noise. A mushroom cloud of dust erupted from the source, and Violet coughed, waving her hand in front of her face.

The basic layout of her room was the same. She could see where her bed once stood, nice and cozy and now reduced to a frame. Her cabinet and closet outlines were still etched into the walls. Goosebumps emerged on her skin. The place where she had spent the majority of her childhood was now a ghost of what it used to be.

She wasn't interested in her room, though. At least, not at the time. She was interested in the fire-resistant drawer that was in her closet.

She tried to slide open her closet, but the slider had fused. With several tough pulls, the platform came down just as the door had, and Violet searched for where she had put the drawer.

At the bottom of the charred debris that Violet assumed used to be her clothes, she found the drawer and pulled it out. Sitting on her metal bed frame, she opened it for the first time in over a year.

The first thing that she pulled out was a locket with the inscription "VB" on it in fancy lettering. It was a present from her mother for her thirteenth birthday.

Next, she withdrew a dress that was folded into a small square. Why hadn't she stuck this in her closet with her other clothes? Violet couldn't remember why, but did recall that this had been her favorite dress, sewn by her mother from the fabric of her grandma's flower curtains that she had taken a liking to.

I wonder if it still fits, Violet thought. Since it was stretchy material, Violet impulsively slipped out of her shirt and skirt and fit the dress over her head.

It fit her perfectly, as though her mother knew where she was going to grow when she was making the dress. It was short sleeve and body fitting until her stomach, where it flared out slightly until it reached her knee. The flowers were white and splashy against a deep midnight blue background. She pulled her grey cardigan over the dress and hugged her arms to her chest.

"Violet?" Quigley appeared at the doorway. He noticed her in a different outfit, with a box on her lap, and came over to sit next to her on the bed frame. "What have you found?"

"I found an old drawer that survived the fire," Violet replied. Quigley couldn't help but stare at her bright eyes as she began to talk animatedly about all the things she could recognize in it.

Violet took her head out of the box with a bent ticket. "This is a ticket stub from when I was Clara from The Nutcracker in kindergarten. I remember that play - I took one look at the audience, turned pale and raced off the stage! Mother would never let me forget it," she added with the trace of a smile on her face, remembering how ceaselessly she was teased for it.

She stopped talking abruptly in the middle of her memories. "Quigley, what day is it?"

The Quagmire triplet closed his eyes. "February 3rd," he said finally.

Violet glanced back down into the box. "I was sixteen yesterday," she said, as if it was more of a statement to her than a significant milestone. It didn't matter how old she was because the main point was that she wasn't eighteen; she still did not have access to the fortune that could transport her and her siblings far away and someplace safe.

Quigley searched for the appropriate words to say to her. He wanted to congratulate her, or say something to breach the silence, but what words fit a young girl who sits with utter indifference about growing older?

Quigley noticed the necklace with "VB" on it, still hanging from Violet's palm. "Here," he said, and cupping her hand, removed the chain from it.

Violet understood what he was doing and turned away from him, removing her long hair off her shoulders. Quigley concentrated on Violet's neck as he clipped the necklace around it.

His hands brushed the back of Violet's neck as he lowered them, and Violet shivered involuntarily at his touch. She turned to face him again with a curious look on her face. She suddenly felt the strong urge to memorize his features, as though something horrible might soon happen and she would never be able to gaze at them again: how his dark brown hair reached just below his ears and framed his eyebrows; his intense, contemplative eyes that were the color of milk chocolate; a long, faded scar on his left jawbone. She reached out absentmindedly and traced the mark with the tips of her fingers.

"It really is a beautiful necklace," Quigley said quietly, but he wasn't focusing on the thin chain, but the person on which it was adorned.

Violet looked back down at her box, pink starting to dot her cheeks. She set the drawer down on the floor and wrapped her arms around Quigley. "Thanks," she said delicately into his ear.

Quigley absentmindedly traced small circles on her back. Slowly, Violet's silky cheek began to slide across his face and closer toward his mouth. Soon, the distance between them disappeared as Violet pressed her lips to his.

Quigley leaned back slightly as he sank into Violet's velvet lips, but hormones quickly overtook him and he placed on hand on Violet's hip to steady themselves on the creaky bed frame. His other hand got knotted into her long, wavy brown hair as he gripped the back of her head with urgency that surprised even himself. Violet sighed into his mouth, careful not to slip off the side; she wasn't certain that the floor could handle their combined weight. She grasped Quigley's shoulder, cupping his jaw in her hand as she breathed in his fresh, piney scent. He smelled so unbelievably _boy_. Every place that he touched throbbed.

Violet pulled away for breathing purposes only. Quigley groaned an objection, his chest heaving.

Unable to wipe the grin off his face, he leaned his forehead against Violet's, "I believe I forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday."

Violet blushed. "I think you just did."

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><p><strong>AN: Three updates in a weekend in two different subjects?! I'd have to say I'm on a roll! **

**Son of Whitebeard: I guess you'll just have to keep reading to find out if Mr. Snicket reveals the contents of the sugar bowl! ;) Although I have to say, I'm optimistic about their chances of figuring it out. Does that make me a bad Unfortunate Events writer? Haha, oh well. **

**I really take your suggestions into consideration. Comment for me? **

**X,**

**DKMV  
><strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**The Ulterior Unearthing - Chapter 5**

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><p><em>"This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life. I was very much a part of that." -John Perkins <em>

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><p>Mr. Remora soon left to salvage what he could out of Hotel Denouement, and Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Quigley followed me out to my black car parked at the back of their mansion.<p>

The children attempted to be discreet when they noticed my license plate read "SGRBWL", but soon their curiosity overwhelmed them and questions began to pour out of them.

An acquaintance of mine, who is known by some for chopping down a cherry tree, once said, "I cannot tell a lie." I apologize if this comes as a shock to you, but this story is utterly false and was made up to teach children about the value of honesty. That person did not really chop down a cherry tree, and it is perfectly okay to tell a lie once in a while.

"How did you know where the sugar bowl was"; "Where do you live"; "How did you know where we were"; "What is your favorite type of coffee"; the influx of questions began to increase in volume the longer I stayed silent. Finally, I had to resort to brief, evasive responses that weren't exactly lies, but just not telling the entire truth. I can assure you, readers, that while there are perfect times for information to be divulged, driving down a less-frequently-traveled road in a stuffy car with a technically suspended license is simply not the place.

The road forked off into another, and I pulled into a rustic gas station at the edge of my hometown. I stepped out of my vehicle to clear my head and, taking several deep breaths of air, I realized too late that a polluted, filthy gas station was not the place to freshen my lungs.

After my car had been pumped full of gasoline, I turned to the Baudelaires, "I am going inside to pay. Please stay inside with your heads low."

I then leaned down to Quigley in the front seat, "I need your assistance. Would you mind accompanying me?"

Without hesitation, Quigley slid out of his seat and followed me into the store. We walked up to a small man with sparse gray hair behind the counter, and he gave us a small smile. I handed Quigley a fifty dollar bill to pay while I browsed the racks next to the man.

"What lovely weather we're having nowadays," the cashier commented lightly.

I replied, "Yes, but I always keep an umbrella with me in case of a downpour."

The man nodded and handed me a box from deep underneath the locked counter. Wanting to confirm its authenticity at the source, I carefully removed the lid and unfolded the parchment within the case.

It was a map. I glanced at Quigley on my right, and observed how his face had illuminated at the sight of a new chart. His eyes were rapidly scanning its surface for familiar landmarks, his gaze intense.

He finally broke away from the paper and searched my face curiously. "This map's completely blank. All it shows are the seven continents. What's so special about it?"

"I was hoping you could tell me that, Quigley."

He looked utterly perplexed. I continued, "This map is supposed to be one of the most accurate existing. If anyone can reassure me that it is, it's you."

He pondered over the map for a few more excruciating seconds. He looked at me again, "You're right. Every single edge is inordinately precise. See the Cape of Good Hope? Usually, cartographers don't draw out the tip, but this one has it right here."

I took his word on it, for all I needed to know was that the map was the correct one. Anxious to get the map back to my car as quickly as I could, I told Quigley to pay the man for the gas and meet me at the car.

Quigley nodded, but stopped me before I could race out and hide the case, "Why do you need a map?"

I avoided his eyes. "Why, to find my way to our destination, of course."

Quigley's brow furrowed, and before he could finish his question of, "Why would you need a map to find your way home...?", I had flown out the door.

Shaking his head, Quigley turned to the man and handed him my fifty dollar bill. The gas had cost less than anticipated, and so the small man disappeared behind a door in the back to gather change. While Quigley waited, he observed me stuffing the map into a compartment at the bottom of the driver's seat. Also, from his position about twenty yards away, he could see the top of a familiar head poking out of the top of the back car seat, a head that belonged to Violet Baudelaire. Heat began to radiate from his cheeks as he smiled involuntarily.

He was so absorbed in thinking about Violet that he did not notice a large man step out from behind the shelf full of cleaning supplies. The man drew closer and closer before he pounced on Quigley abruptly, grabbing him from around the neck dragging him towards the back of the store. His hairy knuckles dug into Quigley's collarbone as Quigley struggled out of his grasp. Quigley barely had time to think, but an animalistic survival instinct kicked into gear before he knew what he was doing. Quigley elbowed his assailant in the gut. Hard.

He heard a grunt of pain behind him, and felt the hands slightly loosen in grip. Quigley was able to turn around and get a good look of his attacker.

The man was very tall and of above average width, but somehow he had speedy reflexes. Sure that Quigley had full view of him, the man confronted him with a sharp, rusty knife that very much wanted to dig into his flesh. He was putting on a show. He was trying to make him scared.

What the man didn't count on was Quigley having nerves of almost impenetrable steel. The Quagmire triplet had witnessed things in his short lifetime that would make the Boogeyman stay hidden under the bed; he had seen his home go up in flames, his siblings carted away on stretchers, and he had heard his parents' futile shouts for help. It was devastating that he had been driven to that point, but Quigley was not scared. On impulse, he grabbed the glass tip jar from the counter and threw it at his attacker's head.

The jar shattered into a million pieces onto the man's chin. Trickles of blood began streaming down onto his chin, and his hand flew up to his face to feel the cuts. He turned to Quigley, his eyes darkened into slits. Quigley grabbed an ornament next to him and aimed again.

The man held up his knife toward Quigley's heart. "You better not try that again," he glowered menacingly. When he was sure that the knife had caught Quigley's attention, with a smirk he raised it to point somewhere else. Following the knife's direction, Quigley turned and spotted it positioned directly at an unsuspecting Violet Baudelaire. Quigley immediately dropped his arm. He wasn't about to give the man incentive to go after Violet.

The man let out a short bark. "You almost make it too easy," he said.

He began to bind Quigley's hands behind him with purposeful force. "You know," he said, uncomfortably close to Quigley's ear, "I remember my boss and me doing this exact same thing a couple of weeks ago to two kids that looked just like you."

Quigley's heart skipped a beat. "What?" he said, despite himself.

"Yeah. Duncan and...who was it, again? Isadora?"

"If you touched them - "

He continued as if he hasn't heard him. "She put up quite the fight, and not to mention was annoyingly loud. But don't worry; we quieted her down reeeeal quick. I find that I can be very...persuasive when I want to be." He slowly licked the blade of his knife and shined it on his jacket.

Looking back, I wish I had decided to go back into that store at that moment to assure Quigley that the man was lying, and his sister had gotten out of the fountain (and evil's clutches) unscathed. But I didn't, and Quigley's mind began conjuring up horrific scenes.

The man, satisfied with the tightness of Quigley's ropes, led him out of the front door and tried to sneak him around the side without alerting the Baudelaires.

At this time, Violet had begun to wonder why Quigley was taking so long in paying for gasoline, and she turned to catch a glimpse of him in the window. When she looked back, however, she saw a huge man with a bloodstained chin push a binded Quigley into the back of his car.

She immediately began to clamber out of the car, shouting to me on the way. She alerted me to the scene, but the car had already begun its drive the opposite way from where we'd come.

Violet chased uselessly after it, trying to catch a glimpse of the license plate, but all she received was a cloud of dust. Her coughs began mixing with the sobs that threatened to escape her throat. She turned back to me in panic.

"We need to follow them now! Come on, get _in_, why aren't you following them?!"

I stared after the receding car. "We cannot. He is already gone."

"What!" she shrieked. She looked at me like I was merely joking, and at any point I would give up and get into the car.

When she realized that this wasn't a prank, she gripped at her hair in hysterics, "We - we can't just give up! He's getting away with Quigley!"

"I need to get you three to my house. Soon. Only then can we find where they are taking Quigley."

"What about if we FOLLOW HIM? We can figure it out that way, too!"

"If we follow him obviously, will he lead us to the correct place? Certainly not."

Violet was still breathing heavily, but she got into the back seat. "Then hurry up and get to your house."

On the way, with Violet squirming nervously in the passenger seat, I explained to her why Quigley was abducted.

"The Villains think that the only reasonable explanation of why your siblings and the Quagmires spend so much time together is because your families are both in each other's wills. They assumed this incorrectly, of course, but the way they think of it, if they get one orphan from one family, they would eventually have access to both fortunes."

Violet couldn't understand the Villains' thought process. "Why would they jump to the conclusion that we have joint will benefits just because we spend time together?"

The eldest Baudelaire still had very little knowledge of evil, even though she was exposed to it every day. I sighed, "Villains have trouble grasping the fact that people can be friends with no monetary incentive whatsoever."

Violet turned to me. "Wait. So if you knew that this was their plan all along, why didn't you take the necessary precautions to warn us?"

I didn't reply, which only invited more allegations. "Did you _mean_ for Quigley to get kidnaped?"

This time, I had to respond. "Of course not. Not for the reason you're thinking, anyway."

"What possible reason could Quigley being captured be for good?"

"While they're distracted with Quigley, we will have ample time to get the sugar bowl without fear of discovery. And they won't kill Quigley; he is their only key to both fortunes."

The eldest Baudelaire's features contorted to that of deep concern. "They won't _KILL_ him? Do you think that's reassuring to me? They could hurt him - do permanent damage! He could be in a worse position than dying, and all you're thinking of him is a _distraction_?!"

"Sacrifice is necessary. Sometimes, we cannot progress without the contributions of others." That's just the way the cold hard world works. I wouldn't expect a sixteen-year-old to understand.

Violet looked as though she could not even believe what I was saying. "That's psychopathic," she said, shaking her head slightly, "utterly psychopathic."

Something about her expression and her body language forced me to recall a moment now twenty one years in the past.

A woman, who looked like the one sitting next to me in the passenger seat, had muttered the exact same phrase. _A psychopath_, I was apparently.

That woman had no idea, she had _no idea_ how much I had given up for her. I had saved her life at multiple occasions. I had never taken credit for them. And she went off and married...that _man_.

And even after all I had given up to keep her alive, so that I could continue to worship her from afar even though she was raising children in another household, she had still perished. All my work had been for nothing. There was no medal for "Trying My Best", but only a gravestone that I could visit once in a while.

We arrived at my house. It was a large and Victorian-style, with the color palette ranging from cold grays to dead blacks. Turrets jutted out of unexpected places all over. It was very complicated to look at, but it was also my home.

I walked in with the three orphans and immediately fetched a trunk from deep inside a hole within my laundry sink.

I opened it and removed the gray cloth that was covering it, to unveil the bottom of a chipped tea set. In the very center was a round bowl facing down, about seven inches wide.

I put on a pair of gloves and flipped it over. I could hear the children next to me involuntarily gasp, not with shock, but with relief. After months of it being just out of their fingertips, they finally lay eyes on the sugar bowl.

* * *

><p>The sugar bowl looked deceptively like any other container of sweetener. It was not, as Klaus had theorized, a code word for documents or information, but a physical bowl, like one you might find in the upper left cabinet of your kitchen in the first column of dishes.<p>

Inside the interior of the bowl were several dots, either red or blue. Among the dots were countless dashes of thin black lines, interconnecting them all and making it look like a bowl of constellations.

"Confunda!" Sunny shrieked, breaking the silence that surrounded the mystical object, and probably meant something along the lines of, "I have no idea what this strange arrangement means."

I sat up and grabbed a chair. "The red dots, representing fire, are the Villains' bases," I said, "and the blue dots, or the water that extinguishes fires, are the Volunteers'. The lines between them are the secret passageways that connect all the headquarters.

"The sugar bowl is the key to a map that tells us all of the Villains' hiding places. Long ago, this used to have only blue dots, but soon, when the Schism happened, a nefarious man stole it and dotted a significant number of these dots red. He then, with a group of people, began to periodically set fire to every single red dot, as promised, and vowed to recapture the bowl and turn every single one red. Out of the remains of the places he burned into nonexistence, when everything had cleared away, he established villain bases beneath them. This bowl is the only way we can locate the bases again."

"And how do we use this key to find the bases?" Klaus asked, not taking his eyes off the bowl.

I extracted the case that I got at the gas station, and removed the map. Unfolding it, I placed the slightly transparent material and conformed it to the inside of the bowl. After all the edges had been matched up, both the children and I could clearly see where every single base was located in respect to the world. Sure enough, the children could see a dot right about where their home lay, with a line connecting it and 667 Dark Avenue.

I sighed with contentment. For the first time in too long, the map and the bowl had been reunited. "Children," I began, "there are exactly four people who know the location of every single Villain base. And they are all in this room."

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><p><strong>AN: Hi, there! I began Lemony Snicket's Unauthorized Biography (ten years late, I know) to make this story seem as realistic as possible, and possibly get some clues on the characteristics of the sugar bowl.**

**What do you all think of my interpretation of the infamous Vessel for Disaccharides? I know that it's one of the frustratingly guarded secrets of Lemony Snicket, so I could only hope to bring it justice.**

**I wrote in a lot of characteristics that I thought Lemony would have. We never really get another person's point of view on his character, since the series is written in his perspective. I think that his tragic flaw is something he developed over the years - in order to survive, he could not let his emotions control him, and so he had to gradually extract them from his system until he ends up sounding quite psychopathic at times. **

**Parsat - Your Briny Beach reference could not be truer...if only we could lure others in to expand this incredible series! Thanks for your consistent dedication; you inspire me to sit my butt down and get these chapters up!**

**X,**

**DKMV**


	6. Chapter 6

**The Ulterior Unearthing - Chapter 6**

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><p><em>"Talk sense into a fool and he calls you foolish." -Euripides <em>

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><p>I examined the bowl and all of its points. It was shocking to me how many tragedies around the world had secretly turned into the origins of a Villain base. The Great Chicago Fire, the ashes from Mt. St. Helens, and even the Chernobyl nuclear disaster had served as building blocks for underground headquarters.<p>

To my relief, the bases that I suspected were near my house were nonexistent. But to the opposite of my relief, the closest base was 667 Dark Avenue. Klaus noticed this as well.

"We're going back to the apartments?" he said, flinching. The painful memories of auctioning off their friends flooded back.

"It appears so," Violet said grimly. She picked up Sunny from off the table and squeezed her tightly.

We got back into my car and I drove considerably above the speed limit to catch up with Quigley and his assailant.

When we arrived at the apartment building, Violet was the first one to scramble out of the car. She gazed up at the building and swallowed the fear in her throat.

We arrived at the two elevators and the siblings confidently stepped into the darkness. They had been there once before, and were more comfortable with the idea of falling than I.

I stepped into the obscurity, though, and fell and fell and fell and fell and fell and fell.

Ropes broke my descent. The siblings were already huddling around each other, inspecting each other for burns or scrapes. Out of the darkness, though, something caught my attention.

"Violet? Klaus? Sunny?" a voice called. It sounded like a voice that was once full of hope, but now broken.

"Quigley!" Violet said, a little too loud. She was silent for a second, afraid that someone had heard, but after she was met with nothing, slid off the rope spider web and headed towards the sound.

I turned on the lamp I had brought from my house. Its light cast a dim glow on the apartment cellar, streaks of dust floating through its gleam. In the corner was the third Quagmire triplet, looking weak but very much alive.

Violet rushed over to him and quickly set to work removing the gags from his mouth. Klaus joined her and they removed his ropes to find purple bruises around his wrists.

"T-t-t..." Quigley muttered softly, slipping in and out of consciousness.

"What? Quigley, what is it?" Violet cupped his face in her hands. What was he trying to say?

"Trap," he finally stuttered out, and he crumpled back into the corner, just as the door opened to reveal Count Olaf.

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><p>After Count Olaf, his associates emerged two by two. The corpulent beast who was neither a man nor a woman came out last and single-file, as it took up the entire doorway. The man with the beard and no hair grabbed Violet, and Kevin, from the Caligari Carnival, picked up Sunny with his ambidextrous hands. Olaf knelt beside Klaus and grabbed him by the hair. He removed a knife from his coat pocket and pressed it into Klaus' neck.<p>

Very roughly, he leaned in close and hissed, "Where is it, boy? Where is the sugar bowl?"

Klaus felt the rusty metal on his skin. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head tersely.

"Don't test me, boy!" Olaf's fingernails dug into his scalp. Klaus' eyes watered from his repugnant odor.

Finally, Klaus spoke. "I'll tell you everything, just...let me go!"

"Don't do it, Klaus!" Quigley shouted weakly from the corner.

Olaf grabbed Klaus by the shoulders and took the knife off of him, a lustful gleam in his eye. "Tell me! Where have you hidden it?"

Klaus didn't meet Olaf's gaze. "It's...in the drawer," he said.

Olaf's unibrow drew toward the center of his head. "What drawer?"

"It's the drawer that it's been in for a while," Klaus said.

Olaf shook Klaus violently. "WHAT DRAWER?"

Klaus closed his eyes and slacked in Olaf's grasp, a calm, contemplative look on his features. Finally, after what seemed like days, he opened his eyes innocently and looked into Olaf's face and said, "Your mother's panty drawer," and spat into his face.

Olaf howled and threw Klaus' head into the floor. He wiped off his face with his dirty suit sleeve and yelled to his associates to take the children to the car.

The Villains trudged into the passageway with the children in front of them. They opened a door at the corner and everyone stumbled into the side alleyway. I, having had hid in the shadows when Count Olaf stepped in, followed a few moments later.

The truck parked outside, which looked deceptively small from the outside, was three rows long. In the back row, Quigley, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny were crammed. In the middle were Kevin, the man with a beard and no hair, and the woman with hair and no beard. Olaf and Colette occupied the front and passenger seats. Since there was no room for the person who was neither a man nor a woman, it hitched a ride in the bed of the truck.

Violet had to switch off, tending to both her brother and Quigley. She ripped off a piece of cloth from her dress and wrapped it around Klaus' bleeding scalp. When she was satisfied that she had staunched the blood flow, she then glanced over at Quigley, who was slumped over in his seat. Her eyes ran over his body, looking for treatable injuries.

She landed on his wrist, which was still purple. She took it in her hands and rubbed soothing circles into it. Quigley stiffened slightly next to her. It was broken.

Looking around the car, Violet picked up an old umbrella that had been tossed carelessly into the back. She broke off the end of it and tore the fabric. With the top framework, she fastened a splint and fixed it around his arm. To prevent it from poking into his hand, she covered the sharp ends with the umbrella material.

The car stopped suddenly. Quigley and Klaus, who weren't in positions to defend themselves, moaned as they jerked forward. Olaf turned around in his seat.

"Orphans, I was very disappointed when I awoke and found you to be nowhere in sight. I guessed you threw your sorry selves overboard rather than follow me to a new life, which was really quite insulting, actually.

"Your little stint made me realize that I can't leave you unattended, ever. You've brought this upon yourselves." Olaf stepped out of the car.

Quigley, finally emerging from his groggy state, came out of the car first, trying to make sense of where they were. In all directions, he could barely see ten feet in front of him. A thick layer of damp air obscured his vision; it was the most fog he had ever seen in his life.

Sunny lightly hit Klaus' cheeks to wake him up.

"Klaus, we need you right now," Violet pleaded, "I need you to figure out where we are."

Klaus opened his eyes and vaguely registered his sister beyond his wire-rimmed glasses. His synapses began to fire as he remembered all the events that happened, leading up to driving to this unknown area.

Violet held down her hand, and Klaus took it. Before exited the car, and Klaus picked up Sunny and thanked her quietly for waking him up.

Klaus immediately began to observe. He noted the thickness of the fog, its thickness, and the type of ground they were walking on. His brain narrowed their located down to seven places. He just needed a little more information.

Olaf and his troupe forced the orphans to walk a little more until they came to the remains of a brick building. Stepping inside what used to be the doorway, Olaf went to the back of the room first and pried open a trapdoor next to the grand piano.

The four orphans, first skeptical to step into the moist darkness, were encouraged by Olaf's knife to hurry in. The last person to come in shut the trap door, and everything plunged into indistinguishable blackness.

Olaf turned on a light, and it cast unattractive shadows on his face as he did a head count. Satisfied with the number of underground, miserable children, he started down the passageway.

The walk took thirty-five minutes. It never diverged; it was just one long, straight corridor. Frequently, water dripped down from leaks in the ceiling. Dust was in every imaginable corner, and several times I had to stop and plug my nose, for fear of being detected by the company just forty feet ahead of me.

Finally, the tunnel reached a dead end, and the only way out was the door in the ceiling, just like the passage between 667 Dark Avenue and the Baudelaire mansion.

Olaf used all his strength, but his scrawny arms couldn't get the door up. Finally, clearly annoyed with how pathetic Olaf's wheezing was, the person who was neither a man nor woman forced past him and sent an enormous hand clear through. The moment his fist connected with the door, a load of rubble crumbled around, sending everyone into a coughing fit that rivaled Mr. Poe's.

"Well. That's one way to settle it," Olaf deadpanned, sweeping debris off his pinstripe suit. "You're going to have to fix that later."

It grunted in response. Everyone climbed up a makeshift ladder and onto the floor above.

Their footsteps echoed as they stepped onto concrete. On their left and their right, as wide and high as the eye could see, were rows and rows of cells. Jail cells. They looked sad and rusty and forgotten beyond repair. Everyone turned grim at the sight except for Olaf. Jail and uncleanliness were more his natural habitat. His eyes gleamed with interest.

Klaus turned to Violet and Quigley. "We're in Alcatraz Prison."

Klaus, for a school report, had done a research paper on Alcatraz Island. After it had closed in the 1960s, it had been abandoned. He had to read extensively about the what the prisoners suffered here. The lack of proper human interaction had driven countless prisoners to insanity.

Violet shook her head. "How did we get here?" She knew that Alcatraz Island was located a mile and a half off the coast of San Francisco Bay.

Klaus shrugged. "We walked right under the entire Bay, and never knew. That explains the fog, though; we were in San Francisco. The Villain base must have been erected out of the remains of the 1906 earthquake."

Olaf clapped his hands to get their attention, and the sudden noise echoed unsettlingly around the room. "As I was saying orphans," he said, "I can't keep an eye on you every second, so the only way is to lock you up. Literally. Ha!"

The theater troupe started laughing along with him. Soon, their psychotic belly laughs were bouncing off every point of the walls.

Olaf gave the signal, and the children were taken by their wrists to a cell.

Thrown carelessly in, the four huddled together to escape the coldness of the concrete cell. Outside, Olaf removed a set of keys and locked the outside. The lock looked like it had been installed recently, for the purpose of holding people.

"Now we don't have to worry about anyone escaping," Olaf said, half to his comrades and half to the children. "Time for a celebratory dinner in the city!"

Hoarse cheering erupted from the associates, and it gradually faded as they left the prison. Klaus heard a boat motor starting up, and then speed into the distance.

Quigley got up and shook the bars, hoping that its old rustiness had rendered them defective. No such luck; the bars stayed in place. In his frustration, Quigley kicked the wall and slid to the ground. Silence followed.

Violet spoke up. "We're going to get out of this, okay? We've been locked in jail before. There's nothing we can't escape from."

The children nodded, but stared out of the cell blankly. Alcatraz was the best secured prison of all time. Sure, now that it was abandoned, it was less protected, but would architects even back then have made the cells themselves easy to bolt from?

Klaus was sitting in deep thought when he heard shifting behind him. Violet, Quigley, and Sunny were all in front of him, facing away. He froze. So what was at his back that was making noise?

He turned very slowly to properly examine the back of the cell. There was a small window near the top of the cell, but it was barred very narrowly too. His eyes shifted down and landed on a small cot.

When the children were thrust into the cell, they had taken the lump in the cot for some bunched up blankets. The children were mistaken.

Klaus rose up from his sitting position and took a tentative step. The mass on the cot sat up, and the blanket fell away.

Beatrice Baudelaire awoke from her nap, and her eyes adjusted to see her son standing before her.

"Oh my God," she said. She fainted straight back onto her bed.


End file.
